1. Field
The disclosed embodiments relate to techniques for managing network traffic. More specifically, the disclosed embodiments relate to techniques that reduce interarrival delays in network traffic by adjusting, based on the interarrival delays, receive windows for senders associated with the network traffic.
2. Related Art
Network links such as wireless access points, cell towers, and/or routers may be shared by a number of network-enabled electronic devices such as personal computers, laptop computers, mobile phones, portable media players, printers, and/or video game consoles. To manage network traffic to the electronic devices, the network links may reduce the flow of packets to the electronic devices, reorder the packets, and/or drop the packets. Senders of the packets may also adjust the rate of transmission of subsequent packets based on packet errors, losses, and/or delays, thus lifting congestion at the network links and facilitating sharing of the network bandwidth by the electronic devices.
On the other hand, the electronic devices may lack the ability to influence the transmission of packets from the senders. Instead, the electronic devices may only receive the packets at the rate at which the packets are transmitted by the senders and/or network links. Moreover, each electronic device may include a number of processes associated with different priorities that send and receive data over the same network link(s). Because the senders and network links lack priority information for the processes, higher-priority (e.g., foreground) processes on the electronic device may end up with a smaller share of bandwidth on the network link than lower-priority (e.g., background) processes, which may adversely affect the use of the electronic device by a user.